Short answer: The Bible does not clearly call every loan with interest a sin today. Old Testament law forbade charging interest to a fellow Israelite who was poor, and Scripture condemns anyone who profits by squeezing the needy, so exploiting someone's desperation with a crushing rate is sinful. Ordinary borrowing and lending at a fair rate is never named as sin, though the Bible keeps telling us to be careful around money.
In This Article
Usury sounds like a word from a history book, yet most of us meet it every month: a mortgage statement, a credit card balance, a car loan. People write to ask whether those arrangements put them on the wrong side of God. Some Islamic banking traditions avoid interest altogether, and for long stretches of the Middle Ages the church in Western Europe forbade it too, so the question has a long pedigree.
Here is how I read the passages, where the line between a fair loan and an unjust one falls, and what it means for a Christian with a bank account.
What Is Usury, And How Is It Different From Interest?
In the old sense of the word, usury meant charging any interest at all on a loan. In today's usage it usually means charging an excessive rate, one set high enough that the lender profits unfairly from the borrower's trouble. A loan shark is the everyday slang for a usurer, and that picture is close to what the prophets had in mind when they condemned the practice.
That shift in meaning matters. When an older writer says "usury is forbidden," he may mean all interest. When a modern pastor says it, he usually means predatory lending. Much confusion comes from mixing the two meanings in a single conversation.
For much of the Middle Ages the church in Western Europe taught that lending at interest was wrong, and Greek philosophers before that were suspicious of it as well. Over the following centuries, lending and investment became the ordinary machinery of trade, and most Christian churches today do not treat a bank loan as sinful in itself. That is the view I hold: the problem is not the existence of interest but how it is used and whom it hurts.
What Does The Bible Say About Usury?
The Old Testament law addressed lending in a society of small farming families. A bad harvest could push a household into debt, and a loan with interest would only deepen the hole. So God told Israel how to treat a neighbor in need.
Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest.
Deuteronomy 23:19 (NIV)
The next verse, Deuteronomy 23:20, allowed interest on loans to foreigners. That was not a license to cheat outsiders. Lending to a foreign trader was a commercial transaction, while lending to a struggling countryman was an act of mercy, and the law kept the two apart. The same principle shows up in Exodus 22:25 and Leviticus 25:35 to 38:
If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not treat it like a business deal; charge no interest.
Exodus 22:25 (NIV)
Notice who the law protects: the needy. The target is profit taken from someone's poverty, not every exchange of money for time. God was teaching a nation to help one another without counting every coin.
The wisdom books carry the same concern. The person who may stand in God's presence is described in Psalm 15:5 as one who lends money to the poor without interest. Proverbs warns of what becomes of the loan shark:
Whoever increases wealth by taking interest or profit from the poor amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.
Proverbs 28:8 (NIV)
When the returning exiles in Nehemiah's day found wealthy Jews pressing their own brothers for interest while families sold their fields and children to buy food, Nehemiah was furious and demanded it stop (see Nehemiah 5:1 to 12). That is usury at its ugliest, and Scripture's verdict on it is plain.
The authors of the Old Testament could not have pictured modern banking, with its mortgages, savings accounts and corporate bonds. The Bible does not give a direct ruling on those systems. What it gives us is principle: do not profit from the weak, do not make money your master, and treat the person across the table as someone God loves.
Did Jesus Preach Against Usury?
Jesus never gave a sermon on interest rates. He had plenty to say about money, though, and none of it supports exploitation. He told his followers to give to the one who asks and to lend without strings (see Luke 6:34 to 35), and he warned that we cannot belong to two masters.
You cannot serve both God and money.
Matthew 6:24 (NIV)
What surprises some readers is that Jesus used banking as a picture in his own parable of the talents. The master scolds the servant who buried his money and says he should have put it with the bankers so that it would have earned interest on his return (Matthew 25:27). Jesus is not teaching investment advice there, and I would not build a doctrine on a parable. But he tells the story without any hint that earning interest is shameful, which tells us something about how ordinary the practice was and how little he saw wrong with it in itself.
When Jesus turned over the tables in the temple, his anger was aimed at people who turned worship into a marketplace, not at money lending as such. The consistent thread is that wealth is a servant and a danger, never a god.
Is Usury A Sin To Christians Today?
Christians have answered this in different ways across the centuries, and honest believers still land in different places. Here is my own reading.
Where lending is done at a fair rate and both sides understand the terms, the Bible does not name it as sin. Banks are a main source of loans in modern life, and a family that takes a mortgage is not violating a commandment. But I would never say that everything banks do is fine either. Charging an exorbitant rate to someone in dire financial straits, and doing it on purpose because you know they have no other option, is morally dubious and, I would say, sinful. It breaks the spirit of everything God said about the poor.
The warnings about money apply to borrowers as much as lenders. A man who lends with interest and a woman who borrows with interest are both called to the same thing: do not take advantage of anyone's weakness, and do not let the pursuit of wealth rule your heart. The apostle wrote that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
1 Timothy 6:10 (NIV)
You will sometimes hear that money itself is the source of evil. That is not what the verse says; the problem is the love of it. A bank balance is neutral. The craving for more of it is what warps a life. For a wider look at that craving, see my study on whether greed is a sin.
How Should A Christian Handle Loans And Interest?
A few simple tests help me when someone asks about a particular loan.
- Is the rate fair and clearly stated? Hidden fees and a rate that doubles after a month are the marks of a trap.
- Is the lender helping or hunting? Payday-style lenders who target the desperate are the modern heirs of the loan sharks the prophets condemned.
- Can I repay it? Borrowing on a hope instead of a plan is unwise, and I treat that more fully in my article on whether debt is a sin.
- If I am the lender, am I willing to be merciful? A friend or church member in real trouble may need a gift or a loan without interest, not a contract.
Money questions are tangled up with heart questions. If you want to understand why the Bible keeps returning to the subject, read about poverty, gambling and the broader definition in what sin actually is.
Key Bible Verses About Usury
- Exodus 22:25: no interest from a needy neighbor; mercy comes before profit.
- Deuteronomy 23:19 to 20: no interest between fellow Israelites, though foreigners were treated as commercial partners.
- Psalm 15:5: lending to the poor without interest marks a person who walks with God.
- Proverbs 28:8: wealth taken from the poor does not last for the one who took it.
- Nehemiah 5:10 to 11: Nehemiah demands that interest taken from brothers in need be returned.
- Matthew 25:27: the master assumes money placed with bankers would earn interest.
- Matthew 6:24: we cannot serve both God and money.
- 1 Timothy 6:10: the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Jesus preach against usury?
Not directly. Jesus never taught on interest rates, but he told his followers to lend without expecting anything back and warned that we cannot serve God and money. In the parable of the talents he even mentions earning interest without criticism. His concern was the heart's grip on money. See Luke 6:35.
Is usury a sin to Christians?
Charging an excessive rate to exploit someone in desperate need is sinful, because it violates God's concern for the poor. Ordinary interest at a fair rate is not named as sin in the Bible, though Christians are told to stay watchful about money. Our study of what sin is explains the principle.
Is it a sin to charge interest on a loan today?
The Old Testament forbade interest on loans to needy fellow Israelites. That law was aimed at protecting the poor. Today the same spirit means no profiting from someone's crisis, and showing mercy where the borrower truly cannot pay.
Is a mortgage or credit card a sin?
No verse forbids them. The danger is borrowing more than you can repay and letting debt rule your life. The Bible warns about the borrower being a slave to the lender in Proverbs 22:7, so borrow carefully.
Why did the church once forbid interest?
Medieval teachers read the Old Testament laws and Greek philosophy as a ban on all interest. Over time the church recognized that fair lending and exploitation are different things, and most traditions now condemn only the exploitative kind.
